Re: Granville Accident 1977

[David Johnson <trainman@ozemail.com.au>]

I have been asked to do another posting on behalf of Vaughan Williamson.  It
follows:



Having dealt with the incongruity of the lack of criminal prosecution
over the Granville accident, could I just tie up several loose ends.

Without recalling who said what in the various posts, I would not
have been surprised if blame could have gone higher than P.R Shirley.
It is just that the historical evidence from Gunn, Fraser and
contemporary accounts point us at Shirley. When there was a comment
about blame never going past the crews etc in most events, we must
ask about the level of justice that applies. More anon. The safety of
timber bodied coaching stock has come up. Can I suggest that safety
in railways is far more dependent upon the design and upkeep of the
overall infrastructure viz signalling and trackwork etc rather than
the design of carriages. Rolling stock is not built like a
modern car where samples are crash tested for occupant safety! I don't
want to press the point, but our preservation societies rely
heavily on timber bodied (and framed) carriages. It would be a great
pity if the view was taken that the stock was intrinsically unsafe
and should be banned. One could only guess about what the upshot of
that view would be. Just think of the less than modern crash standards
of vintage cars. Should they be off the road? And what of vintage
aircraft, including the wood, wire and fabric copies?
Personally, I don't have any difficulties in riding in timber bodied
carriages, but I can appreciate that the experience of seeing problems
could well influence others' opinions on the matter.

Could I address three further issues over the Granville accident namely
1. Social issues, 2. political issues and 3. legality; before conclud-
ing. Again, I have not seen any very similar comment on these things.

1. I mentioned in my previous post how I felt that the accident was
a low point in Australian social history. Whilst there was a very
courageous rescue and recovery effort, and note that on the day
apparently in the order of thousands came forward to donate blood,
there was a very ugly side as well. Whilst some people may have "just
had to be there", and some may have been awaiting anxious news on
relatives, there was a multitude of others who had no business in
the matter, but came for a good look anyway. In what amounted
to hundreds, there was a crowd of spectators at the accident scene.
I think it was tragic that this occurred. Part of the police duties
on the day, consuming valuable resources, was crowd control. I seem
to remember the well-known journalist Mike Willesee actually
interviewed at least two of the spectator crowd with his typical
cutting remarks, and asking what they were doing there. It was an
excellent question, and neither respondent had a very good case to
answer. How sad that an event of great trauma was seen as being a
good morning's or afternoon's entertainment. What an ugly side of
Australian social history...

Whilst the engine crew were justly cleared of any wrong-doing, some
months later the driver was subjected to harrassment in the form of
a bomb hoax on the passenger train he was driving. I seem to remember
that the train (ex Moss Vale) had to be emptied of passengers at
Strathfield so that
police, and the bomb-squad could investigate. Was this a mere coincid-
encesome, or some form of sick joke by someone with access to crew
rosters? Give a bloke who had been through a lot a bit more... When
the're down, kick 'em......

Of course previous posts mentioned how the train crew suffered rocks
through windows, death threats, crank phone calls etc.

I don't know now who it was in aus.rail who was going to dredge up the
engine crew names for the record, and I am not now going to witchhunt
who it was, but can they see why there was so much condemnation of
that proposal by various contributors to the newsgroup? With a social
history outlined above, it would be clear that the publication of
the crew names and whatever else would only serve to wound further
and not heal what was an extreme trauma to many involved and nearby.

Finally on this issue of social history, what of the end of 1977 when
the "Sunday Telegraph" advertised how its New Year's edition was going
to contain the 1978 predictions of the clairvoyant who "predicted"
the Granville accident! I remember that as a TV ad and thought how
low can you go... But against this, could I also remark that the "Women's
Weekly" magazine had a very good coverage of the "human side" of
the tragedy immediately following the event.

2. Unfortunately, politics does go hand-in-hand with the history of
the Granville accident. Public transport had been a hot issue in the
May 1976 NSW state election. This was only about six months after the
dramatic sacking of the Federal Labor government under Whitlam by the
Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. It is significant here because of
the statements and leanings of the media, and in particular, the
newspapers. The Sydney morning Herald utterly condemned the Whitlam
government, and I remember one of its editorials at the time of the
state election. It remarked something along the lines that the election
of Wran would see New South Wales slide back into socialism, from which
the nation had reacted against recently. Its conservative leanings
were plain. The leader of the Liberal/Country party coalition was
Sir Eric Willis, both before the elction as Premier, and after, as
leader of the opposition. If public transport was an election issue,
whose side was on the backfoot??

But now turn to the events of the
18th Jan, 1977 and Sir Eric is interviewed and remarks something of the
order "Mr Wran has a lot of explaining to do, for in the first six
months of his Government,..." and went on to compare the number of
deaths in railway accidents under Wran and under the previous
government (his and his predecessors). It was a cutting remark which
did immense damage. Remember how the Herald backed him a little over
six months before? Now the Herald condemned Sir Eric, in its editorial
where it commented upon the inappropriatness of such a remark upon
a "city in mourning" (or similar words). Sir Eric tried to retract
his comment the next day, claiming that it was said "in a rage". The
video evidence did not seem to support his excuse.

Probably, it was the greatest bungle a politician had ever made. The
comments cut, and the apology did not seem hearty. I suppose that the
ongoing bungle was that Sir Eric did not promptly resign his
position as leader of the opposition, and further, that the Liberal/
Country party did not dump him anyway. (This occurred about six months
later.) At this point of time, I cannot help but think that this was
the catapult that launched Wran into a political longetivity that he
would otherwise never have achieved. The electorate had great difficulty
in forgiving (if they ever did) Sir Eric Willis.

We should note that Sir Eric Willis was not dumb. He was an Army
intelligence officer in WW2. A closer examination of his remarks
could perhaps reveal that the seeds of a most emminent remark were
present though. Suppose he said "someone" rather than "Mr Wran",
and suppose he had not referenced time and government in his remarks.
Suppose he said "Someone has a lot of explaining to do." Would that
not have been such a valuable contribution to the effect that it
points at criminal prosecution -- that incongruously neglected
feature mentioned before! Tragically, Sir Eric said what he said how
he said it. The comments were deeply hurtful to many. It was a very
low point in Australian politics. Of course there is far, far more
than what I have said, and on both sides of politics, but the above
remarks are, to me, salient.

3. The failure of criminal prosecution has been mentioned. We have
already discussed how Philip Raymond Shirley left a history which
points at culpability. Doubtless, if he would have been charged
though, he would not have gone down without a fight. He would
have taken others with him. How potentially embarrassing eh? So why
was there a failure to launch criminal proceedings. Was there a
good legal ground under which this could not be done? Or could we
enter that unhealthy, rumour-driven world of speculation?

I am of the apprehension that many who were involved (as well as others
besides) probably have had reactions to the trauma. Note how packed
St Marks Anglican Church at Granville was at the 20th anniversary
memorial service a bit over 12 months ago (I saw it on the news, as I
did the event itself). Without prosecution for essentially what was
criminal behaviour, the deliberate neglect of the railway system, I
believe has in measure, contributed to the trauma. It has far less
meaning than if we were able to identify the person, or persons respon-
sible.

Can we ask why there was no prosecution. Were the members of the
investigating team and the legal team themselves so badly shaken that
they simply forgot to go to the basic issue of responsibility? Or
were there interests which had to be observed and preserved (don't
worry about who suffers of course)? Not a healthy line to take, but,
it is a possible scenario! Maybe criminal prosecution simply costs
more in fees and compensation. Who knows??
I seem to remember that whilst some of the injured and relatives of
the deceased received substantial compensation, there were some
who didn't.

I have to remark that here was a low point in Australian legal
history.

So thus are some further thoughts. To conclude, just some remarks
on 4620. Ian Strawbridge has commented upon its poor mechanical
condition, though I note Mick Morahan's comment in the book
"Early Diesels and Electrics of the NSWGR" wherein he says gen-
erally "the 46 was a versatile and reliable locomotive". The
Co+Co arrangement where a beam connects the bogies through which
the tractive forces are imparted should not be a problem -- except
when unmaintained. 4620's crowning glory was as assistant loco-
motive to the famous Western Endeavour tour, ie 3801 to Perth in
September 1970, assisted by 3813 to Pt Augusta. Now, film footage
out of the rear cab of 4620 is present in the relevent segment
of the video "3801 A Legend in Steam". Have a look and critically
note the ride quality by comparing the relative roll of 3801. It
is not much! Now, I might comment that about 10 days before the
accident at Granville, I rode behind 4620 on the Mudgee mail late
one Friday night. The train was something of the order of loco,
several louvre vans, single FS car, mail and brake vans. (I am
only recalling from memory, and could be incorrect about the
train, but I was on a train to Mt Victoria at the time!) After
Katoomba the train was barrelling along at about 90-100 kph and
the ride in the FS was ROUGH! I went to the door and looked along
the train and remember that the roll of the vans was great, but
the loco's roll was almost violent. The roll was sillouetted in
the reflection of loco headlight on the landscape. If it was
4620, which I am fairly certain was up front, it would testify
to the poor condition it was in (nevermind the track it was
riding on).

I hope that the above comments are seen as a useful contribution
to the history of the Granville accident. Any distress to anyone
is sincerly regretted, but we should try to be honest about an
event that etched itself so indelibally in history. 12 months or
so ago, I understand Foxtel were looking at producing a TV
miniseries. Whether they went ahead or not, I don't know.

My observations essentially conclude that the Granville train
accident was the product of a volatile cocktail of ignorance,
arrogance and ineptitude; a cocktail of which I wonder whether
any real lessons were learnt.

Regards,

Vaughan Williamson
Teacher of Electrical Engineering, Wollongong TAFE

e-mail: vaughan.williamson@tafensw.edu.au